Landing Pages are a fantastic way of promoting events, shouting about really important news or for pages that need to grab the attention of your users as much as possible. They're also really useful for influencing how traffic flows through your website to encourage users to do something you want them to.

They're usually slightly different to other pages that you create on your website because you want the users attention to be on the content that's really important to them (and you!), rather than distracted by other things going on within the page.

Because they are becoming more and more important to schools and colleges we've added some nice features to the Schudio School Website CMS that make it easier to create really nice landing pages to promote really important content to your audience. After all, it's all about getting the content on your site right - that's the key to everything online.

So, whether you're using the Schudio School Website CMS or not, here's our quick 3 steps to get you building great landing pages that are highly effective.

What are your Landing Pages for?

This is the most important thing to decide before you do anything online; decide why you're creating a landing page and even be so bold as to ask, "is a landing page the right way to present this content?"

fiIf you're happy that you need something that is a bit more stripped down and the page you're creating is for something important enough to warrant a landing page then think about what you want it to do for you.

Do you want people to find out more information? Then think about what the most important piece of information are and make them readily available near the top of the page.

Do you want to promote and event or news article? Include a great photo, give it a snappy title that encourages readers to keep reading and then write some great content to go with it.

Do you want to get some feedback from your users? The means by which you want people to reply to you is the most important thing and so creating a page that lets them get to your contact form or to email you directly is the most important thing. If you link off to another page or site for users to complete what you want them to, make that 'Call to Action' really clear and obvious, easy to find and easy to use.

Clear away any distractions

One of the worst things you can do with landing pages is to give users a way out of the page that's too easy for them to find, we call them distractions. We're trying to make sure that users achieve the goal we set them. So if you want them to read some really important content, removing the sidebar and some of the navigation will make that just a little bit easier and will focus the attention.

Many systems give you the option to achieve this so check yours out (the Schudio CMS does). Simply hide the sidebar, choose a menu that has little or no links to sit at the top of the page and you've cleared away much of the clutter that will distract your users.

Nail the Content

This is simply the most important thing for you to get right and it's all down to you. Whatever system you're using writing good, interesting, relevant content is something that you can certainly do. It requires a little thought and some planning but writing content that is written in a way to achieve a goal is not beyond anyone working in a school or college.

Plan what you want to say, structure the content and write in a style that you're comfortable with. If you're engaged with what you're writing about it can't help but shine through.

Images

Use images that are relevant to the content and support it, not get in the way. Always use alt tags, make sure they're resized to a suitable size for use online and use them strategically; don't just think putting lots of photos in will grab users attention, one brilliant one will do it for you.

Video

Video content is brilliant when it's used right but don't rely on it entirely. Make sure you write supporting content and only include video content to support and enhance what you're saying, not as the main method of delivering the message.

Structure

If you're using a Bootstrap based website (all Schudio sites are) then you already have access to a brilliant bank of additional layout options that are relatively easy to install. Have a read of our recent article on Shoelace.io that makes adding blocks of content to your pages really easy.

If you don't have that available don't panic! Create a page that has a nice photo at the top, a very clear title and then your beautifully crafted content. If you're wanting your users to perform some kind of action, make sure that Call to Action is really clear and obvious and near the top of the page so users don't have to scroll to find it.

I hope that's given you a little bit of an idea of what's possible if you give your landing pages a little bit of thought. Schudio clients are invited to our Advancing Your Website training session which covers so much more and really sets users off in going to town on lots of extra options on their websites.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so drop me a line if you'd like to chat any of this through.